1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the application of Semen Cassiae extract in pharmaceutical industry, especially a Semen Cassiae soft capsule for lowering blood lipids and losing weight and the preparation method thereof.
2. Background of the Invention
Hyperlipidemia is a common disease caused by metabolic disorders that lead to alterations in plasma lipid and lipoprotein. The clinical symptoms include elevation of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL); as well as downtrend and/or decrease in high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Hyperlipidemia is known to relate to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as coronary disease, cerebral apoplexy and high blood pressure; it is also a common cause of gallstone, pancreatitis and Alzheimer's disease. In the past decades, people's dietary structure has been shifting rapidly and dramatically. The intakes of high-calorie food such as animal fat have increased significantly. As a result, the incidence of hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular/cerebrovascular diseases has reached the highest level in human history. Meanwhile, medical evidences have shown that hyperlipidemia is often related to obesity. At present the pharmaceutical industry is working hard to develop a drug for hyperlipidemia that is with better efficacy and less side effect or adverse reaction. One of the approaches is to apply Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory together with modern pharmaceutical technology, and to develop a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) preparation to lower blood lipids and lose weight. Such methods have been described in several Chinese patents, for instance, publication number CN101698028A “A Composition for lowering blood lipids and losing weight and the preparation method thereof” and publication number CN101524441 “A Composition of Traditional Chinese Medicine for lowering blood lipids and losing weight and the preparation method thereof”. But these methods, especially soft capsule preparations, have a universal disadvantage that the content of capsule has low level of solid-state active ingredients, thus the efficacy is low and patients have to take a higher dosage. Meanwhile the present soft capsule manufacture technology applies mainly vegetable oil as dispersion medium, thus the concentration of aqueous and ethanol soluble drug ingredients are low in soft capsule preparations, which limit the application of soft capsule in pharmaceutical industry.